When she clicked the microphone, you could hear background chatter and banter

When she clicked the microphone, you could hear background chatter and banter is a poem giving a voice to patients’ lived experience of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in their own words. Each line is a verbatim quote selectively extracted and arranged with poetic licence, from a collection of qualitative research interview transcripts exploring the lived experience of distress in MRI. Hermeneutic phenomenology was the research methodology employed for this PhD project guided by van Manen’s framework1. Phenomenology provides the description of lived experience (phenomenon) by transforming participants’ lived experience into a textual expression, which are then analysed through the process of hermeneutics to “mine the meaning” of the phenomenon1,2. A central tenant to this methodological approach is the concept of giving a voice to the participants’ perspectives.
There is increasing use of art-based health research (ABHR) to create and disseminate health and social research through a range of art mediums3. This creative work presents qualitative research findings via the medium of poetry with the aim to engage medical radiation science practitioners through this non-traditional format to stimulate dialogue and critical reflection. The original research project was approved by Charle Sturt University’s Human Research Ethics Committee (approval number H19498). The extracted quotes shared in this poem are deidentified to maintain the privacy and confidentiality of the research participants. This poem is dedicated to the resilient individuals who graciously gave their time to the project by sharing their personal experiences.